Bifengxia Panda Base, Panda research center in Ya'an, China
Bifengxia Panda Base is a conservation and research center for giant pandas located in the Bifeng Gorge near Ya'an, in China's Sichuan province. The site sits inside a forested mountain area and holds a group of pandas in large enclosures designed to resemble their natural habitat.
The base was founded in 2003 to take in pandas that needed to be moved away from the Wolong reserve after a 1999 earthquake. The major 2008 Sichuan earthquake severely damaged Wolong, leading to the transfer of even more animals to Bifengxia.
The base takes its name from the Bifeng Gorge, the forested valley in Sichuan's mountains where it sits. Visitors can watch the pandas eat and climb during their active hours, which gives a direct sense of how these animals actually live.
Morning is the best time to visit, as the pandas tend to be most active then. The grounds are large and hilly, so comfortable shoes are a good idea.
Bifengxia is one of the few places in the world where pandas are trained for release into the wild, with keepers wearing special costumes to limit human contact. This approach is meant to prevent the animals from growing used to people before they are returned to a natural setting.
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